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This is me

A busy mind in many places. One of my children was asked what I did for a living. The list given includes my main occupation of farming but also goes on to school bus driver, carpentry, furniture making, developer, designer, landscaping, handyman and more. I've traveled in most states of the union (I'm missing two) and several foreign countries. My favorite vacation is a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I like to read. Favorite authors include western author Louis L'Amour, science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey and architect Sarah Susanka. I like to sing and am a bass in our local barbershop chorus. In church I also prefer the bass part. My best friend and wife, Karen, and I have 3 children who are all busy and happily building their own lives. We have twin granddaughters born in September 2011 and another granddaughter born in April 2014.

Here I am, barely back from one trip and I’m off on another, this time fishing in Canada.

My son, Paul, has had several fishing trips at work related outings and he decided he needed to take his dad and grandfather along this time. Saturday we drove to Crane Lake in northern Minnesota. We got on a boat and started east and then north to Zup’s resort on Lac La Croix. After a stop at the Canadian border station we continued on to Loon Falls where a marine railroad lifted the boat into Loon Lake. Once deposited on Loon Lake We continued along the border to the Beatty Marine Railroad portage into Lac La Croix. The trip included full bore traverses of rice beads and narrow rocky passages.

When we got to Zup’s we were put up in the Rock Cabin, fed a large rib eye steak dinner and got ready for a morning of fishing.

Sunday morning’s walleye fishing was good. We kept the largest walleye for the cooler and ate the small ones for shore lunch. After lunch we headed over to where Lac La Croix empties into the Namakan River. We anchored in the current on the east side of the channel and went after the bass hard. Each of us boated several bass over 2.5 pounds (about 18.5 inches).

We also boated several large Northern Pike, one taping in at 28.5 inches (6.6 pounds).

That night were fed a quarter chicken with all sorts of good sides and went to bed early again, but not before watching a great sunset.

Monday morning started out sunny, but turned cloudy and windy. Although we caught plenty of fish it was not up to the high bar set on Sunday. Still we managed to fill out with our last keeper walleye and have plenty smaller ones for shore lunch.

We gave crappie fishing a try, but only boated two nice ones. We decided to go back to the river for a few more bass before we left. We brought in several nice bass, and a few smaller keepers, but fishing was slow here also.

In the last hour of the afternoon, I hooked the biggest walleye of the trip. She taped out at 25.5 inches (6.1 pounds) and was indeed a beautiful fish.

After a rack of pork ribs for dinner we spent some time catching the folks back home up on what we had been doing and went to bed. The evening had turned cold so we needed the heat on in our cabin.

Tuesday we packed up, took a hike around the island and collected our fish for the trip home. This was a great trip and a good time of generational bonding. We’ll have to give it a try again some other day.